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Simon & Schuster UK has won UK and Commonwealth rights to German “dark thriller” Truth and Other Lies, a book hotly tipped at London Book Fair.
Senior commissioning editor Jessica Leeke bought UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Australia and New Zealand from Sarah Lutyens at Lutyens & Rubinstein, who made the sale on behalf of Michael Heyward at Text Publishing.
One of the much-discussed manuscripts of this year’s London Book Fair, Truth and other Lies, written by German television writer Sascha Arango, has already sold in the territories of France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Brazil, Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic, with US and Canadian auctions underway.
S&S described the story as “a gloriously entertaining and irresistibly dark thriller”.
The book follows anti-hero Henry Hayden, a celebrated author, loving husband and generous friend who “has it all”. However, when his mistress becomes pregnant and his carefully constructed life is under threat, his attempts to control the situation “go horribly, hilariously wrong as he plays off the police, his publisher, his friends and above all his past.”
S&S said: “Henry - elegant, witty and extremely dangerous - weaves an increasingly complicated web of lies, half-lies and half-truths in a deception which is as captivating as it is dark.”
Leeke compared the protagonist to other great psychopaths of literature Tom Ripley, Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman.
“Literature bears some of our most notorious psychopaths, but none of them are as - dare I say it - likeable as Henry Hayden,” Leeke said. “We at Simon & Schuster are thrilled we have the opportunity to bring him to the light of public judgement in this meticulously crafted and uniquely funny debut novel.”
The book will be published in April 2015.